


Misconception

by apathyinreverie



Series: McDanno Miscellaneous [3]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 07:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30035460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathyinreverie/pseuds/apathyinreverie
Summary: Danny is the calm one, the reasonable one, the one who makes sure the explosions are kept to a minimum. Everyone knows that Danny is the one who tempers Steve.It takes the criminals of Oahu a while to realize that it’s whenever that dynamic switches, when Steve is the one coming up with the complex plan and Danny is the one mercilessly pressing forwards, that’s the point in time when you duck, take cover, hide. And pray the apocalypse might not be coming for you quite yet.Or, Steve is kidnapped. And Danny goes berserk.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: McDanno Miscellaneous [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2085882
Comments: 27
Kudos: 174





	Misconception

Every single person living on Oahu knows that Five-0 in general is crazy, every single person who works on that unit having a couple of screws loose, but that their leader, McGarrett, is the truly insane one.

So, it doesn’t surprise anyone that the civilians of Hawaii generally tend to prefer dealing with Williams over dealing with McGarrett. Because, for all that he is a haole, at least Williams follows procedure and there tend to be far fewer explosions when he is involved.

Accordingly, the few times Williams somehow manages to get himself kidnapped, the civilians of Hawaii know to duck, to stay off the streets, best to stay out of McGarrett’s way while he goes on a rampage as he searches for his partner. They know to only stick their heads outside again once the mitigating influence – in the form of Williams himself – on Five-0’s craziness has returned.

However, it’s different for the criminals of Hawaii.

Sure, the various syndicates and gangs and even small-time criminals had figured out rather quickly that while Steve’s temperament might as well be a brick wall, there are several guaranteed way to get an instant rise out of Danny. Things like bringing up his daughter in general conversation or like so much as hinting at a threat to anyone Williams calls his.

In the beginning, it seemed like an easy way to cow him, to pressure the man into bowing to their demands, his ludicrously obvious weak spots.

They all only make that mistake once. And promptly learn not to ever do anything of the sort again. Because Williams on a rampage is a truly terrifying thing to behold.

McGarrett might be the insane one, the one who loves chasing anyone messing with his island and its citizens, who bulldozes through drug cartels like it’s a personal hobby of his. Williams, however, leaves smoking craters of destruction in his wake whenever one of his loved ones is in danger.

McGarrett on a rampage is just more ruthless, more extreme, more single-minded in his pursuit of his targets than he already is. But Williams on a rampage simply goes berserk, loses all restraint, no limits on what he will do, will tear apart anything and anyone who dared so much as look wrongly at those he calls his.

And afterwards, Williams will sit down and explain to his bosses and the judges and the prosecutors and other cops in perfectly concise words why everything he did was entirely procedure, more often than not managing to get his targets charged for whatever destruction he himself wrought in the pursuit of them.

Turns out, there is nothing calm or reasonable about Williams while he chases down threats to those he cares about, and he is also vindictive as fuck in the aftermath.

So, while Hawaii’s civilians fear those moments where anyone dares to so much as look wrongly at Williams, in contrast it’s when Steve is the one injured or threatened or kidnapped that the criminals of Hawaii collectively panic. Because McGarrett might be scary on his good days, but they’ve seen what Williams is like when angry.

And the entirety of Hawaii’s criminal underground agrees that they certainly do not appreciate outsiders coming in and – in their haole-typical ignorance – then decide to mess with that.

You know, since – making their living off of less-than-legal pursuits or not – they all live here as well. And they’d certainly prefer if their entire island weren’t wiped off the map in yet another one of Williams’ rampages due to some haoles messing with anyone even vaguely associated with Five-0, thank you very much.

* * *

Steve thinks it’s hilarious that most people when they first meet Five-0 take one look at them, look between Steve and Danny, and promptly proceed to dismiss Danny as any sort of real threat. Even at second – or third or fourth – glance, still tend to stick with that first assessment.

Sure, between the two of them, Danny seems like the reasonable, the calm one, the one you can rely on to follow procedure. Just as everyone takes one look at Steve and decides that he is the muscle, overly explosion-happy and possibly a little dumb.

Steve thinks it’s more than a little entertaining how no one has figured out how far either of those assumptions are from the truth.

Sure, they aren’t _wrong_ as such. Because, yes, Danny is always nagging the team about following the rules and, yes, Steve rather loves strewing a bit of chaos as he keeps his island safe from larger threats. But Danny is anything but calm, has a temper that utterly dwarves Steve’s and which, once set off, is impossible to placate, while Steve spending years in Naval Intelligence certainly had nothing to do with his looks.

So, it’s not so much that those assumptions about them are wrong. It’s just that they give a very incomplete picture.

There is a reason why Danny follows Steve’s plans no matter how insane they might seem, complaining all the way but trusting his ability to see the way out – or in, for that matter – independent of how hopeless the situation they have found themselves in may seem. Steve has been trained for that, for taking a single glance, assessing everything within a mere moment, and instantly coming up with an entire list of plans, able to present the one most likely to succeed within seconds of arriving at a scene. He is a SEAL. Do people really think he got through ten years of Naval Intelligence based on his looks?

It’s the same for the assumption made about Danny.

Danny who does know the procedure. To a T.

Meaning, he knows exactly how to do things in a way that makes whatever he does _technically_ legal, makes them _technically_ by the books, or – at the very least – argue as much in the aftermath. But still get him the exact results that he wants. Steve has seen him talk hardened criminals into tears more than once, has seen Danny wield his words and never-quite-spoken threats like actual weapons, circumventing rules and laws whenever he deems it necessary.

Danny knows the procedure. And he knows exactly how to get around it.

So, yes, Steve thinks it’s hilarious that even after the couple of times he was gone, either kidnapped or laid up in the hospital or even off on another continent, leaving Danny in charge of Five-0, things certainly didn’t get any easier for the criminals of Oahu, people still haven’t caught on to the fact that Danny is just as ruthless as Steve is while hunting criminals. Possibly even more so. Because when Danny gets done with them, there might be fewer bruises all around, but the prosecutors will also have an airtight case to put the scumbag of the week behind bars until they are old and grey.

They quickly picked up on the general assumptions that people make about the two of them, and these days they have their systems in place to make the most of it. Like the fact that Danny leaves the pressuring of politicians to Steve, if only because most politicians’ so very fragile egos seem to take it much better when they are forced to give in to the demands of the trained black-ops Navy SEAL instead of to the random cop who wandered into their office.

But everyone else? Is perfectly fair game to Danny and Steve may admittedly have a bit of a thing for listening to Danny rip perps verbally apart.

Sure, with Danny in charge there tend to be significantly less explosions involved in any given Five-0 mission than when Steve is the one leading. But that’s pretty much the only difference. And the result – of perps behind bars – remains very much the same.

Though, Steve might also be a little gleeful about the fact that some of his methods have definitely brushed off on Danny as much as he tends to deny it. These days, Danny even only ever gets really angry anymore when Steve puts _himself_ in direct danger. Which, admittedly, happens rather frequently.

But it’s the same thing the other way around. Steve has certainly learned how to work with loopholes, has seen Danny wind his way around guidelines, that Steve knows exactly how to ‘follow procedure’ and still terrorize whatever information he needs out of a suspect.

Ever since the moment they met Danny has been complaining about Steve’s approach to crime-fighting. While getting shot at, while busting down doors, while hanging criminals off the roof. Danny complains, all the while trailing after Steve.

The criminals they chase easily pick up on the first part of that, realize that Danny is the safer bet between the two of them. It tends to take them much longer to notice that – for all his complaining – Danny doesn’t actually _do_ anything about Steve’s methods either.

So, when Steve is taken. Kidnapped. He only leans back in the chair he is cuffed to and absently wonders which morons thought it would be a good idea to go after him of all people. There is no scenario in which this will end well for whoever decided to stage that accident and then proceeded to take him while still woozy from the crash.

Either Steve himself will find an opening and get himself out while burning this place down behind himself.

Or Danny will show up, bringing along their – just as uncompromisingly violent in the defense of their own – team, guns blazing, never mind the very real possibility of Danny having decided to mobilize the entire US Navy while he’s at it, if only out of sheer spite.

Danny doesn’t do things halfway.

So, when, barely an hour or two into his stint as a kidnap victim – while Steve is just in the process of digging through the pockets of the guys who were stupid enough to enter the room he was in to interrogate him, apparently thinking him defenseless just due to being cuffed to a piece of furniture, looking for keys to his cuffs and to the room – there is suddenly sounds of gunfire and hectic scrambling and panicked shouting from beyond the door, Steve just grins, rises from his crouch to lean casually against one of the walls, and watches the door.

Waiting for his partner to step through.

And when the door bangs open barely a minute or so later, revealing Danny with his face pulled into a darkly terrifying scowl, gun pointed, eyes darting around the room, looking for any attackers, Steve’s only regret is that he already knocked the perps in the room with him unconscious.

If only because he’d rather like to have someone around to tell ‘I told you so’.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a piece of happily fluffy ridiculousness. Would love to know what you think :D


End file.
